Background: As companies are operating in more globally and complex environments, the need for risk control is accelerating. In an ever-changing environment, companies cannot merely focus on traditional risks, which include financial and insurable risks. To maintain competitiveness, companies need to extend their risk management to include all risks, traditional as well as operational and strategic risks. Purpose: The purpose is to describe and position risk management for Telecom operators, in comparison with the risk management literature, with regards to structure, processes, learning process, visions and benefits. In addition, our aim is to link risk management perspectives with the different strategies for knowledge management.

Leaders have many tools in their toolbox when it comes to managing their firms, assuring that they are moving in the right direction. One of these tools is vision. Vision can be a powerful tool for steering a company. But to be able to use it fully, you must also understand how vision is best conveyed to employees and followers. If you understand the vision as a tool, you can fully utilize it.

The purpose of this study is to examine how risk is perceived by the urban architect's in the region Dalarna, as well as how this is reflected in their everyday work with risk and decision- making according to urban planning. The ambition is also to show how their risk awareness could be improved. The study is written in cooperation with Länsstyrelsen Dalarna as a part of their regional long-term goal to improve the region's proactive risk' and crisis management. The study is based upon 12 semi-structured interviews with local urban architects conducted during the summer and autumn 2007. The result shows that some architects are motivated for working with risk and think that risk awareness should be integrated in their everyday work, while others are not motivated and think that risk is more of a passing trend.

Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka, analysera och diskutera lärarens, elevers och föräldrars medvetenhet och engagemang om elevernas progression inom läsinlärningen. Analys och slutsatser byggde vi på våra resultat och modern forskning om barns språkinlärning. Detta gjorde vi med hjälp av en klass bestående av 1 lärare, 19 elever och deras föräldrar. Vi använde oss av kartläggningsmetoderna God Läsutveckling och Ordkedjor, enkäter och intervju. Resultatet av vår studie visade att kartläggningsmetoden var betydelsefull, men metodvalet inte var det avgörande för läsutvecklingen hos eleverna.

The purpose of this essay is to study if and how five South African educators work with music as a special pedagogical tool in children's language development. To achieve the purpose of this study, two research questions were created. As method, interviews of a qualitative character were chosen.  The aim of the method is to give the educators the opportunity to think about and use their own experience before answering the questions.The result shows that the South African educators are not using music as a special educational tool. They rather use music as an everyday educational tool to promote children's language development. The result indicates that music in educational activities promotes children?s communication with each other.

This study examines the use of building modeling and energy simulations in the design process  of  a  building.  The  take-off  point  is  the  notion  of  energy  simulations  being needed early and throughout the building design process, and that the lack of energy simulations may be explained by the fact that they are time consuming and therefore often too expensive. A greater interoperability between software tools used by relevant disciplines,  such  as  the  architect  and  the  energy  specialist,  would  create  smoother workflows, which would reduce this cost and open up for more frequent and iterative energy  simulation  processes.  The  study  is  an  assessment  of  the  modeling  tool  Revit and  the  simulation  tool  Virtual  Environment  and  whether  they  can  create  smoother workflows, and make leeway for a more frequent use of energy simulations throughout the  design  process.  It  also  investigates  the  limitations  of  what  can  be  examined  by simulations in Virtual Environment. This will hopefully help clarify the future role of energy  simulations  in  design  processes.  The  method  is  a  trial  by  error  approach  of testing the two software tools by building and simulating a model. The results of these tests  show  that  the  workflow  is  not  optimal  (and  therefore  time  consuming)  for frequent  and  iterative simulations  throughout the  design  process,  but  it  also  reveals some  great  possibilities  of  what  can  be  performed  with  these  two  powerful  tools  at hand.  Further  development  with  regards  on  platform  independency  of  the  building information  model,  including  seamless  exporting  and  importing,  seems  necessary  to strengthen the future role of energy simulations..

Title:   Controlling Mälarenergi by Balanced Scorecard Seminar date:  2009-01-16 Institution:   School of Sustainable Development of Society and Technology Course:   Bachelor thesis 15hp Authors:   Camilla Nilsson, Amanda Agestav Advisor:   Ulla Pettersson The main issues:                What does Mälarenergi's Balanced Scorecard look like? Which Balanced Scorecard perspectives are important to Mälarenergi? Is Balanced Scorecard a purposeful control model in order for the group management to fulfil the aims of the owners' directives? Purpose:                            The purpose is to find out how the group management at Mälarenergi works with Balanced Scorecard. Is Balanced Scorecard a purposeful tool for the group management to fulfill the aims of the owners' directives? Method:                             This study is based on a qualitative research method in the form of interviews. We have interviewed one respondent.

Our paper is based on matrixes and the feedback process as tools in the daily work in the higher education system. The main purpose with this paper is to investigate if these tools can enhance the effect of formative assessment and increase students? empowerment in the courses. In do-ing so, we investigate if students experience that their efforts result in increased progression in their courses and if they acquire adequate proficiency in the subject matters native to their pro-grams, along with an increased desire for lifelong learning. Compulsory collection of data for profit is conducted through interviews of students in year one of the IT media program and the IT program.

This thesis work is made by Torbjörn Johansson on Karlstad University for Uddeholms AB. The assignment in this thesis work was to investigate tough cutting in three different tool steels: Vanadis 4 Extra, Vancron 40 and Sverker 21. The research was to compare the wear of the tool after cutting in each one of the tool steel alloys. The research was also made to see if the tool cutting in Vancron 40 has a better wear than the tool cutting in Vanadis 4 Extra and also compare the results with Sverker 21. All three of these alloys are a part of Uddeholms AB:s range of products, and is used in applications like forming tools and knife tools. Vancron 40 is a powder steel with a very good combination of mechanical properties like ductility, adhesive strength and hardness.

The report describes an ecodesign thesis performed by the author at the ÅF EcoDesign Center. The basic idea of ecodesign is to develop products with a minimized environmental load, without neglecting other significant product aspects such as function and price. During the last couple of years the public interest in environmental friendly products has increased, which has made it possible for companies to make a profit from their investments in ecodesign. To meet the increasing market for ecodesign services ÅF started the ÅF EcoDesign Center, where the company has gathered all of their competence in ecodesign in order to help companies to become greener. The task was to develop a tool for an Eco Screening.

The aim of this study was to describe and understand parents? perspectives in aid assessment for children according to The Swedish Act (1993:387) concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments (Lag 1993:387 om stöd och service till vissa funktionshindrade, LSS). The study took place in the county of Kronoberg, Sweden, and was based on a total of nine qualitative interviews. Four interviews were made with parents? of children who has interventions according to LSS (1993:387) and five interviews were made with LSS case workers. In our study we saw that parents? perspectives often is the largest amount of information that case workers take into account when assessing aid and as a case worker you listen to the parents perspectives to capture the child?s and the family?s needs. It also came clear that the parents? perspective is not only about the child?s needs, but also includes the parent?s own needs and their family?s needs. The parents in the study felt that they made the decision about the choice of aid and considered themselves as the one who decides the family?s requirements. It turned out that treatment and understanding from the case workers was important for gaining access to the best help and making parents feel listened to. Parental responsibility was of great importance for the assessment, and it often led to disagreement between parents and case workers. During the study, we saw that power existed in the relationship between case workers and parents, but that it could be moved and changed during the time of aid assessment..

Farmers are constantly facing changes, and the exposure to risk requires monitoring these changes. Financial risks, institutional risks, market risks and production risks are the different risk categories that the farmers face. Production risks stems from factors the farmer cannot affect or is beyond his control. The crop?s output is the basis for the primary income of agricultural operations, which is why it is important for farmer to manage their production risk. A tool to reduce the consequences of production risks is crop insurance.

The aim of this study was to examine nursing personnel?s knowledge about oral health care and attitudes towards the free assessment of the oral status done by the dental service for elderly and handicapped persons in a municipality in the south part of Skåne, and also how personnel experience the free assessment of the oral status done by the dental service and how it functioned at the facilities. The study was carried out by sending out 150 questionnaires to nursing personnel at six special housing facilities. 73% (110 personnel?s) answered the questionnaires.

AbstractMI stands for Motivational Interviewing, the Swedish translation of MI is Motiverande Samtal. Adolescence is a period in life when challenges are encountered and pivotal choices are being made. It is during this period adolescents form their lifestyle, which have an impact for their health for the rest of their life. MI has shown to be an effective and appropriate method for school nurses within school health care, to utilize in approaching by adolescents with risk behavior. This is because it gives adolescence to take responsibility and empowers them to make decisions regarding lifestyle-changes.

AbstractMI stands for Motivational Interviewing, the Swedish translation of MI is Motiverande Samtal. Adolescence is a period in life when challenges are encountered and pivotal choices are being made. It is during this period adolescents form their lifestyle, which have an impact for their health for the rest of their life. MI has shown to be an effective and appropriate method for school nurses within school health care, to utilize in approaching by adolescents with risk behavior. This is because it gives adolescence to take responsibility and empowers them to make decisions regarding lifestyle-changes.